Dee Dee Bridgewater at Mary Lou Willliams Women in Jazz Festival

Dee Dee Bridgewater has been always unbounded in all things she does. Like the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, she has an imposing chronicle. The 15th annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, celebrating the centenary of Mary Lou William’s Birth, hosted the All-Star Quintet composed by Dee Dee on vocal, Grace Kelly on saxophone, Geri Allen on piano, Esperanza Spalding on bass and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums.

The addition of these musicians says a lot about the leader. For Dee Dee music is sift, exhalation/inhalation, a perpetually unfold voyage. Her vast saga of performing music with artists from all over the world is sufficiently documented. It’s also one of the characteristics that makes her so fascinating and ad rem after long time. From her early recordings, with her mark, she had forged her own musical oneness.

This band sounded just perfect. Rounded out by the great Geri Allen on acoustic piano, Dee Dee adds a zesty scat and groove, swarming with jaunty Kelly’s reed charts, and an upstanding bottom end, set down by the drum-bass section. And whereas the quintet’s exultant mode of rendition furnish a gala-like atmosphere.

With the groove vigorously settled, Gerry Allen and Esperanza Spalding took extended solos, with Dee Dee adding the zest only she has in her push. Ultimately De Dee soloed. Her soloing puts musicians conjointly, continually on the face of rhythm driven by an effort for what has not even come formerly, and always engaging. Her songs were remarkable interpreted, so firm yet so crystalline and compendious, the audience’s were heads wheeling, looking at each other as if to say "impressive".

No doubt, the harmony between these artists was remarkable. Hopefully there will be more opportunities for these amazing women to play together and audiences to sustain their inimitable sound.